Of Choices Made and Paths Created
by xUponAMidnightDrearyx
Summary: Clarke always wished she had done more, saved more lives, taken less. As she lay dying from a panther after leaving Camp Jaha she wishes for a second chance. When she next opens her eyes she's back on the Ark. Time-travel/ do-over fic. Full summary inside, mentions of past Clexa, Bellarke and Flarke with no set end pairing. Infrequent updates, you have been warned. please R and R.


**Summary:** Clarke always wished she had done more, saved more lives, taken less. As she lay dying from a panther after leaving Camp Jaha she wishes for a second chance. When she next opens her eyes she's back on the Ark. Again and again she relives her time on earth only to fail and die to start all over. Will the cycle ever stop or are these just no good guys and no happy endings for those on the ground?

 **A/N:** inspired by BadWolfRisen's time travelish fic called Once More with other influences such as Again and Again by Athey. A do-over/ time-travel fic. I have an idea of where I want this fic to go but at the same time I'm leaving myself open for changes.

No set pairings but will have mentions of past Flarke, Bellarke and Clexa. Clarke has lived through multiple lives and tried multiple things, getting to a point where relationships meant a lot and then nothing. This will primarily be about a more jaded Clarke who's seen and felt too much death and is still trying to find the best solution. She will be more willing to step on toes and more physically capable than the original. She will have moments of breakdown and relapse, you wouldn't be able to live through multiple deaths without being broken in some way, and I think that it's impossible to expect that of her.

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Ch 1: Once more unto the breach, dear friends

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She's not really sure anymore how many times she had woken up to this same ceiling after breathing what should have been her last breath. She had lost count after the sixth time but she was sure it couldn't be more than ten. The alternate paths, as she started referring to them, had started blurring together after that one where she had died in so much pain she had woken up screaming in the beginning again. Each time after waking the steel grey walls and fluorescent lights brought back worse and worse memories, all those deaths hitting her all at once. Memories of the things changed and lives lost always followed her death memories.

 _Her third time through had been almost as bad as the sixth. She still feels the drill as her friends and mother beg and scream at them. The enemy monsters, because she's come to stop seeing Cage and Dr. Lorelai as anything put monsters, continue to take her life slowly by draining her bone marrow. She hears Bellamy's rage and Ravens cries, just as loud and heart wrenching as when she took Finn's life the first time around. Remembers the sick glee in the eyes of the monsters who create monsters before her heart stutters and she feels it as it gives –_

She takes a deep breath, jerking out of the past and focusing on the present, trying to order her thoughts and not think about the shaking her body does as if remembering the pain made it physical all over again.

She sits up and walks to the door where she knows a guard stands watch over solitary part of the skybox.

"Hey, can I get a book request?" The guard is, as he always is, shocked at her request. Being a councilwoman's daughter allows Clarke privileges even while in confinement but usually she only asks for charcoal. In her months in solitary, only two or three at this point rather than the year she would live through until the ground, she had never made use of the book requests that most other young offenders were allowed access to. Either those delinquents didn't care about the knowledge, finding it useless if they were gonna die at 18 any way, or simply were denied the privilege due to bad behaviour.

"Book requests must be-" "passed by an authorised member of the council and granted only if the guard captain approves, I know. But there's only so much space on the walls and so many things to draw before I start dying of boredom in here. A change of pace would be nice for a while, keep me a hell of a lot quieter than charcoal screeches on metal."

The guard pauses outside her door, obviously thinking it through but Clarke knows he'll relent, he always does, whether out of pity for her or actual want for quiet she's never sure. She hears him as he sighs and pulls up his tablet ready to take down her requests, it only takes her a second to decide on the topics this time.

"Earth skills: building anew from the land by Damien Richards, The art of tracking and hunting on earth by William Trent, Medical herbs and other useful fauna by Amanda Singh, Art of War by Sun Tzu, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. Aesop's Fables, the collections of Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe and you can throw in a couple other choices from the poetry section of the Ark library as well."

She hears him stop typing furiously at the end of the list, and answers when questions the large amount and strange selection of her choices. The list could have been bigger but she had read much in her past lives; from the classical works of the ancient Greeks Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to the newer works by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. She would have asked for more Earth skills books but she's long since out read all of them, the three she chose this time simply being a refresher pick for her rather than new material like the guard thinks.

"I know I'll never need the earth skills but I'm getting curious about the ways they were used in the past. If I'm going to only live for another year I may as well die satisfying that curiosity. So I figured educational works for my mind and artistic poetry and stories for my soul."

He doesn't question it further, probably shocked at the flippant reference to her own end, and leaves without another word.

Clarke goes back to her bed and lies there staring up at the metal ceiling and fluorescent lights once again.

She lies there and thinks, and plans, and plots, and most of all mourns. As she does she grows more determined again, picking together the broken pieces and forming the shield around her mind that she's learned to accept and make out of necessity. She grows determined to do better, Octavia's words repeating from the first, original life, where she had confronted Clarke on her actions – on her efforts – outside of those dreaded mountain doors under layers of earth.

" _Yeah, well, it's not good enough."_

And Clarke knows this, believes it to her very core, feels the weight of the lives lost that she could have, _should have_ , saved. The weight of her people, the delinquents and Bellamy, the weight of her failures and the weight of her kills and Clarke _knows_.

Knows that it wasn't good enough and hopes that _this time_ it would be.

She lies there and thinks about the past and words spring back to her mind as she begins to drift into uncomfortable sleep, mentally exhausted.

" _Don't worry Clarke, my spirit will choose much better than that," Green eyes stare back at her out of a too soft face for such a great warrior, a great leader, "do not fear Clarke, death is not the end."_

Clarke couldn't help but chuckle bitterly at those memories, the words spoken what seemed so long ago. Death really wasn't the end, to her it was a cycle of never ending pain, regret, lose and more.

' _How many times can a spirit be reborn Lexa, until it is broken beyond repair?'_

Clarke didn't know the answer, but she is sure that she would learn, but not today, not this time.

" _It's not good enough."_

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 **End notes:** Chapter title taken from the speech given in Shakespeare's _Henry V, Act_ _III._ This is the only chapter I have so far but I have plenty of ideas for this one and I know I'm frustrating but I upload super infrequently due to still being in University so I don't have much time to write like I want.

I look forward to hearing the reviews, or Pms if you don't want to leave a review. Thanks for reading and hopefully my 100 fan train will continue as season 3 goes on! (THURSDAY TOMORROW!)

Take care and read on - UponAMidnightDreary


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